The Article
by TheNinjaNerd
Summary: What if the article was written? What if our four favorite people cut out their secrets of the article and kept them to themselves? What if they stole the others peices of the article and read the others secrets? And finally... What are their secrets?
1. Chapter 1

**I just wanted to try this out! This is what happens if the dreaded article was written after all, and the pig women (thats what I always called her) published it. Read and tell me what you think, I might continue, I might not, we'll see.**

"Just read it Theo. Let's get it over with. I can't stand not knowing what the rest of the world now knows about me," said Lulu, looking at the paper with pure disdain.

"I'm not sure I'm quite ready to know what the rest of the world now knows about me," said Madeline, who looked a little green.

"Schmidty can read it. I don't think I can," said Theo.

"Just read it Theo," Garrison said.

Theo sighed and slowly pulled the paper to him from its place by Grace, the turtle on the dining room table.

He slowly held it up, and then slammed it back down, "Macaroni can do it."

"Macaroni can't read!" Lulu said.

"We'll teach him. He can be the world's first reading dog. Sure, it might take some time and we won't be able to read the article for a while, but really, by the time we make a dog learn to read, no one will care about the School of Fear anymore."

"Theo, read."

"Have I ever mentioned I have an allergy to newspaper?"

"No you don't! You always discuss articles in the New York Times!" Lulu argued.

"Fine, I'll read it!" said Theo, grabbing the paper. His eyes scanned the article, grew wide, and turning to Lulu in shock. "You did _what_ to my hall monitor sash?"

"Out loud Theo!" said Garrison.

"I want to know what Lulu did to your sash!" Hyacinth said.

But Theo kept the article to himself. "No one in this room is allowed to read this about me. It's not happening. I'm cutting it out."

"You can't do that! It's not fair that you get to read our secrets and we don't read yours!" Lulu said.

"If you don't read mine, I won't read yours," he said.

"Maybe that's… maybe that's fair. We can each cut out our section of the article," Madison said, worrying about what the others might read about her.

"I agree with Madeline," said Theo," however I see no reason why we shouldn't all see the history of Mrs. Wellington and Schmidty."

"Theo! Everyone needs their privacy," Madeline chided.

"Well since we obviously don't have any anymore, I think its fine!" he said.

Garrison, however, had already found a pair of scissors, taken the paper from Theo, found a lengthy paragraph with which his name frequented, and cut it out, and was stuffing it in his pocket.

The others looked at him. Then at the scissors. Then at the article. Then they all dove for them.

"GAH! Hyacinth, that's my arm! Stop ripping it out of its socket!"

"Theo get your bum off of me!"

"Lulu that's my eye! Get the scissors away from it!"

"Garrison let go of my leg!"

"OW! Madeline, you just _bit_ me!"

"No I didn't!"

"Celery stop! You'll get stepped on! I can't lose you!"

"What are you children doing?" demanded Schmidty from the doorway.

They all froze where they were, Madeline turning red as she realized Garrison was holding onto her hand.

They jumped away from each other. "Well," Madeline began, "Secrets are secrets. And just because the whole world knows are secrets doesn't mean we have to know each other's secrets so we were going to cut out our parts of the article that we were in."

"Here!" said Hyacinth, handing each of them their paper, but keeping hers tucked close to her chest.

"I cut them out! You're welcome!" she said.

"Why do you have two?" Lulu demanded.

"One is Celery's. Duh."

"Are Abernathy and Mrs. Wellington still…?" Garrison let the question drift off.

"Still… catching up, yes," Schmidty answered.

"Oh."

"Go wash up for dinner and read your secrets. I don't think they will be joining us tonight."

The children ran off, into different corners reading their secrets to themselves, mortified the world knew these things about them. How many people had read this? But, while they should have been thinking about there own secrets, all they could think about was the others parts of the article said.

**Dun dun dun! That's right! You will actually get to read peices of the article in this story. Fun, right? **


	2. Chapter 2

**I DID NOT COME UP WITH THE IDEA FOR THIS STORY, ROMANCEONTHEBRAIN DID. I simply wrote it. With her permission of course. I'm not a theif like that :P I forgot to mention that last chapter, so... I got yelled at. Really, it is on the review list deal, I was yelled at. Sad day :(**

Dinner was an awkward thing. Everyone was glancing suspiciously at everyone else, thinking they might know there secrets. Lulu kept glancing at Theo, seeing as he had had the paper the longest, and might have read more than he was leading on.

Madeline was in full on panic mode. What if the Prime Minister got a hold of this? What if he remembered her form… the incident? This was bad. Very, very bad.

Theo refused to touch his food. It was official. The world, the country, worst of all, _his classmates, _knew he wore a girdle to school. There was only one way to fix this. Tell his classmates that it was a typo his name was in there in the first place. How? He would lose his baby fat and say he didn't even wear a girdle. That's all it was. Baby fat. By going on a model diet. That's right. Nothing but carrots and celery for him. The vegetable, not ferret. He already knew what that tasted like from when it had slept in his mouth. It wasn't going to become a regular part of his diet. But celery was such an awkward vegetable in the first place…

Garrison was never going home again. He didn't know what was worse. That his dad would be disappointed in him that he'd been lying about being a surfer, or that Ashley would think he was a total loser for offering to teach her to surf when he didn't know how himself. But worst of all… no. He couldn't even think of the others knowing it. Much less the world. It was too embarrassing.

Lulu, meanwhile, figured that it could have been worse. For one, Sylvie, even though by the looks on the others faces, seemed to have weeded out every personal detail of their lives and put it on paper, seemed to have completely missed the biggest secret Lulu had.

Hyacinth really didn't see anything on the paper that she hadn't told someone at some point at time. Besties don't keep secrets. Except she supposed her siblings would be a little angry at her for… never mind. She was sure they would understand. She was more worried that Celery seemed upset about her clipping.

Theo pushed away his plate. The others stopped there worrying and stared at him. "Theo, are you feeling ill?" Madeline inquired, having never seen the boy willingly give up food before.

"I," he began, "am going on what I shall call the Theo diet. If I am going to be in the eye of the world, I am going to look good."

"Celery suggests you try a paper bag, not starving yourself," Hyacinth said.

"Oh yea? I suggest the ferret try a paper bag!"

"Dude, the bag would be big enough for then ferrets. It's a little roomy for one ferret," Garrison said.

"Maybe you should get weight watchers," said Lulu.

"Lulu! How dare you suggest weight watchers! Have you sensitivity to the fat people?" Theo demanded.

"You're the one who says you have to go on a diet!" Lulu shot back.

"I don't know how the stars do it! I'm starving!" Theo said.

"Theo," Madeline interrupted, "You started your diet two minutes ago."

"Celery says she doesn't think you're going to last ten minutes," Hyacinth said.

After dinner, which Theo did eat, the children headed up to their rooms and later to bed, and slowly, one by one, to sleep.

All but Garrison. Who could only think of one thing. Was he mentioned in Madeline's clipping? And finally, some hours later in the early hours of the morning, he decided he just had to know. So he did something that he would've been ashamed of if he hadn't been so curious and hopeful.

He slowly, quietly, snuck into the girl's room and stepped over Hyacinth, towards Madeline, who was sleeping in her shower cap. She'd given it up during the day, but wasn't quite ready to sleep without it.

He noticed Madeline's hand under her pillow and knew it was clutched in her hand. Slowly, carefully, he reached under her pillow and pulled the paper from her hand, which had relaxed at his touch.

He opened the wrinkled bit of newspaper, and read by moonlight from the window.

_Who is Madeline Masterson? The Brit of the group of five students attending the School of Fear, Madeline has a severe fear of spiders and bugs. So severe, they lead her to drastic measures. Mosquito nets, personal exterminators, but what most don't know is that two years ago, Madeline was so scared by a spider she had… well, quite a unique dining experience. A recently exterminated restaurant the Masterson attended had a quite a special guest- the Prime Minister. However, suffering from a –personal- aliment, the Minister had locked himself in the bathroom. Masterson was having her first enjoyable dining experience in a year in a place other than her home, at a small corner table. Masterson just so happened to look up and catch a glimpse of a web, in the corner of the wall, above her head, and a spider, hanging from a thread, not three inches from her nose as she looked up. Masterson fled the scene, but seeing as the doors were cluttered up with eager diners and they were blocked, Masterson had to find other methods of escape. Screaming, Masterson rushed into the nearest door she could find- the Men's restrooms. Right past the Prime Ministers guards, and locked herself in his stall. The Minister was so surprised, he couldn't speak, and Masterson was so embarrassed she couldn't move. Until the guards also burst into the stall, breaking the door, and pulled her out, sure she was a terrorist. Masterson scrambled out of their grip and away, but this reporter does not think she ever truly forgot the look of the Ministers face. Or her parents as she was chased out of a restaurant by guards. Masterson-_

Madeline started moving and Garrison thrust the paper back into the hand under the pillow.

"Garrison?" Madeline said, squinting at the shape outlined by the moon. "What are you doing?"

"Um, uh… you were making noises. I thought you might be having a bad dream. I came to make sure you were alright. You are alright, aren't you?" Garrison said.

Madeline turned red. "Oh, thank you that's very sweet. I don't remember my dream actually, but thank you for checking on my-"

"Your welcome!" Garrison said, scrambling back to his bed.

Madeline clutched the paper in her hand and looked at it, sighing. Her secrets were safe.

**Also, if any of you happen to know of an editor or beta willing to put up with a hardheaded writer, let me know. It's not for me! It isn't, so please do not go an editor or beta saying it's for me. It's for a person to lazy to find her own. You know who you are. Just... I don't know any, if you know one, please tell them to PM please! **


	3. Chapter 3

The morning following the bad dream that Madeline couldn't remember, she did something that she is not proud of. She spied on Lulu to see where she had hidden her clipping of the article.

It actually wasn't as hard as she thought it would be. She simply hid under her bed (after checking for bugs) and watched as Lulu slipped the clipping into one of her boots, looking around the room, and walked down to breakfast.

Madeline quickly crawled out from under the bed, but resisted the urge to go straight to the boot; she planned to do that later. She couldn't be late for breakfast without some suspicion. Wait. What was wrong with her? This was Lulu, her friend! Madeline would hate it if others knew about her secrets; she couldn't go around trying to find out things about the others! What was wrong with her?

Garrison should have felt guilty for snooping. He should've felt _awful_ for lying to Madeline. But the worst of it was- he didn't feel either of those things. All he wanted was to know more. More about Madeline. He didn't really care about Theo, or Lulu, or Hyacinth's secrets. Just Madeline's.

Lulu was heading to breakfast. She'd hidden secrets rather well, she thought. Who would dare look in a smelly old boot? "Lulu! Wait up!" Lulu turned and saw Madeline running towards her. She stopped.

"I thought you were already at breakfast?" Lulu asked.

Madeline turned a little red."Oh. I was seeing if Abernathy and Mrs. Wellington were coming down to breakfast. We haven't seen them since we got back."

Lulu nodded her head. She didn't see Madeline as a liar, and it seemed reasonable. So why didn't she believe her? And why did she have dust all over her?

She'd change her hiding spot. Just to be safe.

Theo was the first one at the table that morning. He had decided his clipping was safe in one place and one place only: his sock. Sure, it would smell a little when he took it out, but he couldn't let the others get it. Sylvie had written about _everything_. Even that when he was born, he was fifteen pounds, eight ounces!

Hyacinth, during the night, had realized something. Earlier she had thought _Besties don't keep secrets_. But then she realized that _her_ Besties were keeping secrets! They were probably just embarrassed and forgot. But still. She should know these things about her friends. So, she had decided she would read the clippings of the others so she could be the best Bestie she could be.

Theo _tried_ to eat his breakfast of only crackers as he had that all he be given. "After all," he told the others, "Beauty is pain, is the worst kind of pain is starvation." But even so, he couldn't keep himself from trying to goad Macaroni to steal toast for him. Which Macaroni didn't do.

There was hardly any conversation, besides complaints at Macaroni's passing of gas, and once, Theo's.

"Schmidty," Madeline inquired, "when are we going to start lessons again?"

"I don't know," he sighed.

Lulu pushed her chair back and stood up. "I don't feel well. I'm going to lie down," and went back to her room to re-hide her clipping.

After much thinking, she decided the best place was under the slats up her bed, between the boards and her mattress.

She then lay down and went back to sleep.

Five minutes after she left the table, Celery left his/her **(A/N What IS Celery?)** place beside Hyacinth and dove for Theo's foot.

"Get the beast off of me!" Theo yelled, bouncing around on one foot, trying to shake the ferret off, stepping on Macaroni's tail.

"Celery! Let go of his foot! It's diseased!" Hyacinth shouted, trying to grab the ferret off of the bouncing Theo.

Garrison tried to help, but got kicked in the face, and Madeline's attention was set on him instead of Theo and the ferret.

While she asked him if he was okay, Celery was thrown off of Theo and took off, Hyacinth chasing after him/her.

Celery ran all the way to the girl's room, under the sleeping Lulu's bed. Hyacinth stopped when she saw Lulu, and tip-toed to her bed, reaching for Celery, but instead grabbing something that felt like… paper.

She forgot Celery and looked at the paper. It was Lulu's article! She could start being a better Bestie now, with Lulu first.

_Lucy Punchalower, or Lulu as she prefers to be called, is a usually tough girl- except when it comes to small spaces. Punchalower suffers from claustrophobia. But why should a girl who seems to be fearless be afraid of something so trivial? This reporter found this very interesting, and decided to investigate. It seems Punchalower's fear began at the age of three, when she was more or less buried alive in a local McDonald's parking lot. The girl (who actually used to be quite chubby. Perhaps too many Happy Meals? See picture on page 4.) Was walking away from the building, mad that she had not gotten the Happy Meal prize she had wanted, and failed to notice the small hole in the lot that had been dug up to fix the neighboring buildings pipes. She fell into the hall, and her chubby child body wedged into the space as she squirmed around to get out. Seeing that their angry daughter was nowhere to be found, her parents called the police, who began looking for her. But the officer assigned to the parking lot where she was located could not hear her cries for help as he was talking on the phone to a girlfriend who was trying to break up with him. The construction workers, who had been told they could carry on as soon as they all confirmed they had not seen a small girl wondering about, went back to work so they could fill up the hole and be done with it. As the cement truck backed up to the hole, one of the workers finally heard something over the sound of the machine. He looked down into the hole to see the face of a small (but not all that small) child's face. It took two hours to get Punchalower out, (she was wedged in quite tight)and by the time she was she was scarred for live. Her fear was in place, and she never went to McDonalds again. But, on the bright side, because of the lack of McDonalds she eventually slimmed up around the age of five._

Hyacinth stopped reading stared at Lulu's sleeping face. She just couldn't imagine a fat Lulu. Lulu began to stir, and Hyacinth quietly and quickly put the clipping back, grabbed Celery, and got out of there.

That night at dinner, Lulu asked Hyacinth why she kept staring at her, and Hyacinth replied, "I'm trying to imagine you as fat as Theo. I can imagine Garrison that big, but not you."

Garrison looked offended.

Lulu changed the location of her clipping. Again.

**Tada! I didn't edit, sorry! I probaly should have, but I didn't. So I'm sorry for any mistakes! So... what clipping do yall want to see next?**


	4. Chapter 4

**I'M SO SORRY I'VE TAKEN FOREVER! I couldn't figure out what to do, but I'm on an ice cream high so you got a new chapter because I figured out what to do even though I could've done better and will try really hard to make an awesomer chapter next time. I really am sorry for the wait!**

Garrison kept his clipping in his pocket. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he didn't completely trust Theo not to go looking for it. So he kept it with him at all times.

Unfortunately for Garrison, he made it a habit of touching his pocket every minute or so to check if it was there, which was not unnoticed by Theo, who had indeed been scouring the room that morning for the very article that he now believed to be in Garrison's pocket. But the question was, how did he get it?

It wasn't spying, Theo told himself. Really, what if Garrison had robbed a bank? Surely he was entitled to know if he was roommates with a bank robber.

He was trying to figure just _how_ he was going to extract the paper from the boys pocket when Mrs. Wellington walked into the room along with Abernathy for dinner.

The two had been playing a game of catch-up ever since they had returned to the School of Fear. Mrs. Wellington figured that since her current career was more than likely finished she should try out another- mother.

They had been cooped up the same room with no contact with anyone but each other, telling each other their favorite stories of the Abernathy's father.

But now they had returned, and neither said a word as they sat down. As a matter of fact, no one said a word as they sat down. Everyone seemed to be waiting for everyone else to say something. Except Theo, who was trying to force down the carrots he had insisted Schmidty give him for dinner as part of his diet.

He was regretting that decision as the carrots seemed to be almost rotten.

"Celery thinks it's great you guys are reconnecting and not fighting anymore. It's hard to be Besties with two people who aren't Besties," Hyacinth finally said.

Mrs. Wellington looked at the girl. "We are making progress. We do not like each other yet; we simply decided that we should not hate each other." She now turned to Abernathy. "It's not what his father would have wanted and we have accepted that."

"If you don't hate each other, then isn't it just a given fact that you like each other?" Madeline questioned.

"No," Abernathy said. Madeline didn't ask another question.

In the meantime, Theo was writing a list of all foods that should _not_ be included in his Theo diet. Carrots being at the very top.

After dinner, the children filed single file upstairs to their rooms, none speaking as none quite trusted the others yet, with Lulu leading the way.

Until Lulu tripped and the domino effect took place, Madeline tripping over Lulu, then Hyacinth over Madeline, Garrison over Hyacinth and finally, Theo over Garrison.

Without really thinking, Theo's hands slipped Garrison's clipping from his pocket and replaced it with his list while everyone was trying to find their way back up.

Theo couldn't quite believe he had done it and hadn't been caught as soon as he tried it. He felt the paper in his pocket and rubbed it between his fingers in awe.

As soon as Garrison was back up, he felt his pocket and was immediately reassured by the clipping still in there. His secrets were safe.

That night, Theo locked himself in the bathroom and sat on the toilet with the lid down and took out the paper. He began to read.

_Who is Garrison Feldman really? A ladies man? A surfer? A swimmer? In reality, Garrison Feldman is none of these. Being a surfer and swimmer is most definitely out of the question, Feldman is deathly afraid of water. And a ladies' man? The boy's unfortunate history stars as far back as second grade when Mel Smith turned down his Valentine's Day cookie he had made her. But his fear goes as far back as when he was a small child and nearly drowned in the bath tub. But there is only one occasion when these two problems of Feldman's collided, and it did not end well. _

_In fourth grade, Feldman became smitten with a new girl named Ashley. This particular girl was a member of the towns swim team, lived on the beach, had an aquarium in her room, and the her first words when the teacher asked her to tell them all about herself were "I love water." Not exactly a match made in heaven, but the boy was determined to make it work. The class took a field trip to an aquarium a couple weeks later and Feldman studied up on his dolphins, sharks, and octopi in order to impress the girl. He figured if he could just talk about the fish, that he wouldn't have to actually go anywhere near them to impress her and make his move. Well, any move a fourth grader is capable of, of course. It worked just wonderfully, until Ashley, who was indeed becoming smitten with the boy who appeared to know just about the ocean as she did, until she grabbed his hand pulled him over to the dolphins, which were in a pool that was surrounded by children. The poor boy was to dumbstruck by the girl actually touching him, much less holding his hand, to notice that she was pulling him towards water. By the time she was using both of their hands to reach forward to pet the dolphin, it was far too late. Feldman startled and so did the dolphin, but Ashley was determined to reach it and when Feldman jumped away, she fell into the pool in front of all of her new class mates, forever earning the nick name dolphin girl. Suffice to say, she didn't speak to him again for four years, and only to ask for a pencil._

Theo couldn't believe it. He would actually have a chance to teach his friend how to talk to girls! He smiled to himself. He'd always tried to pass on his tips to his older brother Joaquin, but he would never listen to him. Well, lucky for Garrison, Theo was here to help!

**Soooo? What do you think Theo's tips will be? Who's article do you want next, Theo's or Hyacinth's?**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hehe... Um... Yeah, it's been a little while since I've uploaded... Updating this story just kind of slipped my mind, so thanks to The Darkest Roses for asking me to update! I don't have enough sorries for how sorry I am that this took so long... and it's short... but it's what I've got.**

The next morning, Theo slipped Garrison's article pack into his pocket when he "accidentally" bumped into him. On the way down to breakfast, however, Theo began to worry that he was developing the habits of a pick pocket. Of course, he had always battled with his bad boy side, he told himself. He was simply too dangerous for his own good. It was a constant battle, it truly was. He took out his list of foods not on his diet that he had gotten back from Garrison and added "prison food".

Lulu continued to change the location of her clipping every hour or so. She was tempted to rip it up completely. But she couldn't make herself do it.

As she was rounding a corner on her way to breakfast, Lulu saw a door beginning to open. Without thinking or knowing why, she ran back around the corner. A few seconds later she heard footsteps going in the other direction. She peeked around the corner. The retreating figure had a ferret on her shoulder.

Wondering why Hyacinth was in a strange room, Lulu opened the door and went in. Quietly shutting the door behind her, she looked out into the room and froze.

The room was painted a horrid pink. But you could barely see the Pepto Bismo color because the walls were covered in portraits of Mrs. Wellington in pageant wear. The many Wellingtons looked down on Lulu with bright smiles, but seemed to be scolding her just the same.

Why on Earth was Hyacinth in here!?

Lulu walked around the room. It didn't look like it was used often, if only by Mrs. Wellington to relive her beauty queen days. Many of the pictures were coated in dust, but they all were all perfectly straight on the wall.

Almost all of them…

A smaller picture of Mrs. Wellington wearing a tiara, a sash, and on a unicycle in the corner caught Lulu's eye. It was crooked. When Lulu looked at it more closely, she saw that not all of it was covered with dust. Lulu carefully took down the picture, flipping it over.

She opened the back. A clipping that had been pressed against the picture fell out. Replacing the picture and picking up the clipping, Lulu peeked her head outside the door to make sure Hyacinth was coming back. The hallway was empty.

Lulu looked at it.

_Though many think of Hyacinth Hicklebee-Riyatulle as an annoying girl, in truth she used to be very secluded and shy. Until the age of eight, that is. Isolophobia, the fear of being alone, is what forced her parents to send the girl to The School of Fear. Hyacinth didn't always have this problem. _

_During a camping trip at the age of eight, Hyacinth became lost in the woods when she and her family were separated. She stayed lost for only twenty-four hours, but the damage was done. In actuality, she was only about thirty feet away from a highway a pet store. _

_Convinced that she was going to have to live the rest of her live alone, she went so far as to make herself a doll made of twigs for companionship. When an escaped ferret from the pet store found her, she was so overjoyed that a worker on break heard her and found her. Since then, she has not been able to be alone._

Lulu heard footsteps and panicked. She hurried back to the picture and put it back. The footsteps were much too loud to be Hyacinths, and she realized it was Theo when she heard muttering about pick pockets and how prison food would not be good for his figure. When the footsteps faded, Lulu rolled her eyes and slipped out of the room, trying to make herself look casual as she headed down to breakfast.

**I'll TRY to actually do the next chapter at a decent pace. The main word being TRY. **


	6. Chapter 6

**Okay guys, you're not going to believe it but... I actually finished this myself. I honestly did not think I would finish this story, but then I realized I was being really lame and lazy and that I was going to finish this if it killed me. And it didn't, I'm still very much alive.**

**So I'm sorry for the wait and my ineptness at writing this story (Because I do know how much it sucks for someone to stop writing mid story and I'm slightly (Okay, maybe not just slightly) ashamed that I'd do the same thing that I hate) So ta-da! The finale to The Article!**

In the days following the release of the article, the children could barely look at each other without thinking about the others secrets, as the thievery went on. However, though it would be seem likely the children would get better at their sneakiness as they did more and more of it; it was actually quite the opposite.

They all grew worse, at reading the others pieces undetected (Lulu had noticed that her clipping, at that time hidden under her mattress, had not been face down as she had left it, a sloppy job on Hyacinth's part), at hiding what they knew when they looked at each other (Madeleine had become quite familiar with Garrison's infatuation with a girl named Ashley and couldn't quite keep hidden her disapproval as she listened to him one night at dinner telling Lulu facts about sea turtles, which he seemed to have a vast knowledge of), and it slowly dawned on them all that if _they _could find the others clippings… then couldn't the others find theirs?

It stayed this way for almost a week, until Mrs. Wellington and Abernathy emerged one night for dinner, which Mrs. Wellington was to be a celebration of her and Abernathy's return to the dinner table.

"Children," she said from the head of the table, at the edge of her seat as the gold tutu she'd worn for her "reemergence dinner" didn't allow her to sit back, "I would like you to know that I am thoroughly disappointed in all of you."

"What kind of opening for a reemergence dinner is that? Where's the great speech? The step-mother/son story of bonding and acceptance that brings tears to our eyes and is worthy of a movie? Where is the family will conquer all and we will all be fine message? Most of all where is the dessert? What is a reemergence dinner without dessert!?" Theo cried, banging his fork angrily on the table.

"Theo!" Madeleine chided, "I'm sure she wasn't finished! Let her speak, I'm sure she had a point, right, Mrs. Wellington?" she said, shooting the former pageant queen a hopeful look.

"No. That was all," Mrs. Wellington said, trying to take a bite of her dinner, but missing her mouth.

"Besides, Theo, it's not like you need dessert," Lulu chimed in, rolling her eyes, but mostly trying to ignore the sense of failure Mrs. Wellington's words had hit her with.

"Ha! Says the girl who got stuck in a hole in a McDonald's parking lot! You've got no room to talk! _Literally_!" Theo said, his anger at his failed diet and the buildup of her snide comments finally getting to him.

In that moment, the room froze, as by now they had all read Lulu's article.

In that moment Garrison was reminded of learning about Medusa in his English class, as Theo turned to stone under her gaze.

"_What was that_?" Lulu said into the silence.

"If it helps, Lulu" Hyacinth interjected "Theo got stuck in a window during a fire drill last fall. Then they actually had to call the fire department to get him out."

"No one ever told me it was a _drill_! And even so, the nonchalance of it all was revolting! What if that was a real fire and I couldn't escape because my classmates didn't know the meaning of a quick, orderly exit?" Theo retorted, embarrassed, his face an ironic shade of fire engine red.

"Then you still would've burned, man. You were stuck in a window," Garrison said.

"Wait! How do you know that?" Theo said, turning to Hyacinth. Celery sat on the girl's shoulder.

"Besties don't keep secrets! I read your clipping in the name of friendship," Hyacinth defended.

"That is an invasion of privacy and something only a terrible friend would do!" Theo exclaimed.

"You did the same thing! Obviously! How _else_ would you know about McDonalds?" Lulu yelled, standing up and knocking over her chair. She moved to go around the table to Theo, but tripped over a napping Macaroni.

"Lulu!" Madeleine cried, afraid to help the angry girl for fear she'd be caught in the crossfire, but also in fear she'd find out she'd read Lulu's clipping too.

Luluand stood, glaring at Theo.

Hyacinth spoke up. "Guys, besties don't keep secrets! I've read all of you guy's stuff! And it's okay, too! I still like you guy's!"

Everyone turned to look at the small girl. Celery bared teeth at them, feeling the sudden animosity.

"You did _what_!?" Garrison yelled.

"You did the same! I saw you read Madeleine's while she was in the bathroom," Hyacinth said.

Madeleine turned to Garrison. "What?"

Hyacinth continued. "And do you still like her, Garrison, even though you know her secrets?"

"What?" he questioned, his chest clenching in fear at the hurt look Madeleine was giving him.

"Do you still like her?" the girl repeated.

"Well… yea. Of course I do," Garrison answered, turning red.

"Then what does it matter?"

Madeleine looked at Garrison. "I-Ireadyourstoo" she said in a rush, her face turning even redder than his.

"And do you still like him?" Hyacinth asked.

Madeleine met his eyes. "Of course."

Garrison's chest clenched again, but from a different, more pleasant feeling.

"Everyone's read my clipping, haven't they? I know I've read everyone's…" Lulu said her fists unclenching.

Everyone nodded, looking down.

"Well. You know what? I don't care. I don't care if you know. And maybe I'll have to dye my hair and change my name when I go home, but it doesn't matter if you guys know. I know your secrets and for once Hyacinth's right. I still like you. Well, most of you. Who cares what the world thinks? We still have each other."

Madeleine smiled at the girl. "That was lovely. I feel the same."

"Ditto," said Garrison.

Theo wiped a tear from his eye. "I didn't know you were actually capable of being human."

Lulu picked up part of her dinner and threw it at him, nailing him in the forehead. "There's your dessert, moron."

"I'm too mature to play your games," Theo told her, secretly glad he got part of her dinner.

"Children, I have an announcement!" Mrs. Wellington suddenly said. They had all forgotten she was even at the table.

"My reemergence dinner is, actually, not about _my_ reemergence. It's about yours, as the summer is nearing an end."

"Are you loaning us wigs?" Madeleine asked, eyeing Mrs. Wellingtons own. "Because I am fine with dying my hair…"

"No, I mean none of you need to worry about the world judging you based on your secrets," she told them.

"If you're trying to make us feel better Mrs. Wellington that's really nice but it's all out there-"Garrison started.

"No, it's not. There isn't an article," she said, taking a bite of her dinner.

"You're in denial," Theo told her, "which is perfectly understandable-"

"No, I mean the article never got printed. I called in a favor from a former student and stopped it from being written and gave you a fake one to teach you a lesson."

They all sat there in stunned silence. "So much for your American freedom of speech…" Madeleine murmured to herself, too shocked and relieved to say anything else.

"I don't understand," Garrison finally said.

"It was never actually written," Mrs. Wellington explained. "I had Schmidty write one based on information we'd gathered about all of you and give it to you."

"But _why_?" Lulu exclaimed, outraged.

"Because, I wanted you to teach you all one more lesson before you left the School of Fear."

"And that is?" Theo asked.

"That nothing is as scary when you have friends that accept you. You were all afraid of judgment. But as a beauty queen, I know better than anyone that others opinions don't matter as long as your friends love you."

"See! That's a reemergence dinner speech!" Theo said.

"Couldn't you have just _told_ us that?" Garrison asked.

Mrs. Wellington turned to the distressed boy, noticing his hand rested lightly on Madeleine's.

"And what would be the fun in that?"

**Thanks a ton for bearing with me!**** It's more than I deserved, and I think you guys are fantastic.**

**Farewell and with love,**

**-Jessi**


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